There are a lot of big wrestling events on the calendar. Some carry more history than others, while some are well on their way to becoming prestigious. Even with that becoming ever more the reality, there’s still only one WrestleMania.
Well, it’s over two nights now, but I digress.
Nights one and two of WrestleMania 42 consist of 11 matches over both nights, with the major marquee matches spread and spaced out across the shows, headlined seemingly by the men’s world title matches on both nights.
Having skipped over AEW Dynasty, the prediction tally sits at 12.5/21(59.5%), which will get knocked back down to earth like any hopes and dreams of a logical Orton-Rhodes build.
Without any further ado, let’s dive into night one of WrestleMania 42.
The Vision and IShowSpeed vs. The Usos & LA Knight
I honestly can’t say I’m looking forward to this matchup. I can’t help but feel this one is going to be built around the Usos and whatever gimmicky schtick Speed will be doing throughout the match. This feels like a celebrity showcase match intended to garner attention and little else. There will be hijinks. There will be yeeting. And other stuff. It will be what it will be, and if it’s decent? Cool. Prediction: We probably lose time we’ll never recover…. also the Usos and LA Knight. Yeah!
Jacob Fatu vs. Drew McIntyre
And here we have the first major match of the night, and while I think you could have made a strong and very valid argument for them to be included in the WWE title picture, I like the way this was dovetailed into its own equally valid blood feud. Branching off from Cody Rhodes and the WWE title, McIntyre and Fatu have done a pretty good job building on the hostilities from their orbiting of the WWE title toward a match that should be very physical and one I’d expect will end cleanly with Fatu going over. Is that a guarantee? No, but I think that considering how their feud started with Fatu costing Rhodes the WWE title to McIntyre’s benefit, how he factored into Drew losing it, and every violent thing that followed that loss, I don’t think McIntyre has more to gain momentum-wise or in terms of character building than Fatu does. A Fatu win could easily project him forward into the IC title scene post-WrestleMania, whereas McIntyre can still hang around the upper mid-card and WWE title scene win or lose. I think Fatu just has so much more to gain with a win. Prediction: Jacob FatuÂ
World Women’s Championship – Stephanie Vaquer (C) vs. Liv Morgan
In my opinion Vaquer and Morgan have had the better build in the women’s division. I don’t think that’s even debatable. I think when you look at the key points of their build from the point the decision for Morgan to challenge was executed, the two have been embroiled in hostilities that have escalated into a blood feud. It’s become very physical and deeply personal as they’ve transitioned from the foreplay of the decision itself with Morgan choosing between Vaquer and Cargill, to the initial interviews, to both delving deep into their paths converging on this point in time despite having started at two very different places. Tack on the little things like the accidental injuries Morgan has incurred from Vaquer to her face and it all comes to together to just create this piece of wrestling magic you simply can’t plan or architect. And the best part is their match at a minimum could be one of the best of the night. I’ve been watching Vaquer since her days in CMLL, saw her few appearances in NJPW and AEW, and watched her develop further in WWE. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her have a bad match. Add Morgan in, who I didn’t think much of until I saw her training videos at the Hart Dungeon during the pandemic. Morgan’s ring work is criminally underrated and she’s going into the ring with one of the world’s best. Suffice to say, I think this is a match to watch this weekend. As for the winner… my head says Vaquer, my heart says Morgan, and the prediction says: Prediction: Liv Morgan. (Vaquer’s reign has been about 7 months long, and while I could reason Vaquer retaining because I think she still has more to do as a champion, I don’t think this needs to be the end of their feud if Morgan wins. You can easily flip it back to Vaquer with Backlash and a Saturday Night’s Main Event scheduled in the coming weeks.)
Women’s Intercontinental Championship: AJ Lee (C) vs. Becky Lynch
I wouldn’t hesitate for a moment to say these two have created the best IC title feud in the championship’s short history. Lynch has arguably been the strongest and most present champion, and Lee has proven to be a perfect foil to her both as a challenger and now champion. Becky was probably the best person to reintroduce Lee to WWE and I think their feud has hit all of the key points it’s needed to hit along the way from the moment she returned. I think they’ve come to a point though where they need to be separated and move on to other potential feuds and matchups. There’s two paths here. On the one hand I think Becky is the better pick to continue on with the championship, I think she’s done good work in trying to establish it as a staple of WWE programming since she first began carrying it. And when I look at who the world champions could be coming out of WrestleMania, I have trouble seeing Lynch go up against them right now perhaps save for Liv Morgan. And even that doesn’t really work. Conversely, you could have Lynch move on and then keep AJ Lee working to carry on the title’s build, but who can you honestly say is ready to be “next up” with AJ Lee as champion? I think there’s more value in Lynch winning, and Lee going away for a little while before coming back to challenge one of the two world champions. Just imagine the Lee-Cargill promo. Yeah. So… Prediction: Becky Lynch
Women’s Tag Championships: Irresistible Forces vs. Charlotte Flair and Alexa Bliss vs. Lyra Valkyria and Bayley vs. the Bellas
There’s a rumour kicking around about this match that is hardly substantiated, so I won’t get into it. An aspect of this match is up in the air though with Nikki Bella’s injury, so it’s difficult to say with absolute confidence what I think could happen here. I think if the rumour is true, then that combination of team is a real possibility to take the belts home. I don’t think it’s a good idea, but frankly they’re going to do what they’re going to do. So with that said, I think if the Bellas maintained their position and collective health, they were not winning this match. The injury kind of alters that course, so we’ll see. If I’m being honest I don’t think Bliss and Charlotte are the best fits to carry the titles once again, and I think they have more value maybe moving on to the IC title picture to freshen the scene up a bit whether it’s Lee or Lynch holding the title at the end of the night. I can see Bayley and Lyra winning, but I’d make the same argument for injecting them into one of the two mid-card title pictures. I think both need freshening up. That leads me to the Irresistible Forces retaining, which I think is the safest best route aside from any surprises that could be hit or miss. Prediction: Irresistible Forces
Seth Rollins vs. Gunther
Where I’d argue Liv Morgan and Stephanie Vaquer could put up a surprise match of the night contender, I feel like in-ring excellence is expected here. From a wrestling perspective, and from a narrative perspective, they’ve honed in perfectly on the “why” of this match even occurring at all with such a short build behind it. The way this has been approached is just more well crafted than a number of the feuds filling out the WrestleMania card. With Rollins and Gunther, and the roll Gunther has been on since mid-2025 underlining this match and his character build, they’ve managed to build out a match that on paper wouldn’t have made a lot of sense in February. It’s not very elaborate and its strength is its simplicity being executed by two people who know how to maximize their minutes. Zeroing in on the baseline of Rollins believing himself to be the best, and that just straight up pissing off Gunther to his core is what makes it work. Predicting the outcome though is tricky.
I think that naturally you’d assume Gunther wins to continue his momentum, otherwise what has been the point of retiring Goldberg, John Cena and AJ Styles in succession? Rollins winning is actually illogical against the last 9 months of Gunther’s run. Conversely, if Gunther wins, what’s next? There’s a strong possibility Randy Orton and Roman Reigns both leave Mania with the world championships, and that doesn’t exactly work with Gunther’s booking. Maybe you can do King of the Ring? Maybe you do a build to SummerSlam for that Lesnar match? But I think beyond that, it’s likely time to strap him with a world title soon. Playing Devil’s Advocate, Rollins winning doesn’t do much for him other than feeding the outcome into a Bron Breakker return. Maybe that’s the solution. Perhaps Breakker interferes in some capacity and Gunther wins, because I don’t think it’s as though Rollins wins and instantly is bound for the world title, and I don’t think they’d do something like have Reigns beat Punk and then have him drop it so quickly to Rollins just to feed the championship to Breakker. I think there’s a pathway to Rollins winning given how Gunther’s Achilles heel has been utilized in his major losses, but I don’t see an outcome to build from that doesn’t devalue the world title with a series of short reigns. Gunther winning just feels like the cleanest result that lets you branch off both without them necessarily going for world titles. Prediction: Gunther
WWE World Championship: Cody Rhodes (C) vs. Randy Orton
I held off talking about the latest developments in their story because, although I get “why” it works from a business standpoint, as a fan and critic who knows their history and can see where they could have gone, Pat McAfee being the voice in Orton’s head was disappointing and dare I say grossly illogically deriving from a small crevice inside a pocket universe in deep left-centre field.
What’s worse with McAfee’s shoehorning is I think there are better ways to have revived full “Viper Orton” other than using McAfee as the catalyst. I also don’t think he’s improving the overall presentation of the build, and in some ways it’s become as much about him as it has Orton and Rhodes when the latter should be the focus. Given their history it wouldn’t be hard, but the inclusion of McAfee has drawn away from what should have been a very simple story that could have easily mirrored the same tone and execution as CM Punk and Roman Reigns. In my opinion Punk and Reigns’ build has just been better executed because they’ve been allowed to build it with their history. Rhodes and Orton just feels meddled with.
Coming up after Mania we have Backlash on May 9, a Saturday Night’s Main Event on May 23, and a Clash in Italy on May 31. That’s all before we get into the summer months ahead of SummerSlam. There are plenty of opportunities to continue this and course-correct the feud toward what makes more sense in grounded terms for Rhodes and Orton, and I suppose you can continue it past WrestleMania regardless of who wins. However, the McAfee stipulation grounds the result in the understanding that it would be very unlikely to never see Pat again on WWE TV, and because of that it almost makes Orton winning a guarantee. That in turn diminishes the emotional build and worthwhileness to even watch the full match when there’s a very high chance Orton wins. I think Orton would have been winning regardless of whether the champion was McIntyre or Rhodes, but there’s a difference between building a match the way Reigns and Punk have, and what we’ve got here. This build is like if you write an epic-level story and build the plot, and then have someone else come along to rewrite the ending. It’s just a poor choice that I think has taken away from what Rhodes and Orton’s storytelling could accomplish on their own. We’ll see how it ends and I’ll probably be back to rip it a part once the dust is settled next week. And so, to close night one of WrestleMania 42… Prediction: Randy Orton takes home number 15 because he’s long overdue for a solid world title reign. I think this would have happened with or without McAfee’s involvement.
Stay tuned, because I’ll be back with a roundup of night one’s events and a likely grave-bound predictions record, as well as night two predictions to hopefully — probably not — resuscitate it.
